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The Relapse Door

By: YDB95





The Relapse Door



"Okay, big man," Tom said out loud. "Darcie wouldn't hurt you, now would she? Get back to work." And as he set off back to his walk, he vowed he would submit his resignation that evening. Enough was enough. There were jobs to be had in Mascawad that would let him pay the bills and sleep at night, and not go crazy out in the woods.

The sounds behind him came again. Just one at first, a moment after he had resumed his walk, then a few more here and there on either side behind him. Too distant to be threatening, he reminded himself, if they're there at all. And he didn't look behind him again. He didn't need to look behind him to see Darcie, for now she danced gracefully in his memory as he made his way through the woods. Vivacious in her dark red swimsuit that matched her hair so well, he could see her to this day sauntering to the pool, cheering the kids on through their lesson, dismissing class with a wave and a grin before she vanished into the women's locker room. Tom really had witnessed all that. He had not witnessed what came next, but after all those years of fantasies he could picture it even more vividly: Darcie pulling off her wet swimsuit to reveal her perfect breasts and dignified ladygarden at the apex of her long legs, and enjoying a hot steamy shower during which she shamelessly played with herself until she came again and again.

That image had certainly had Tom coming again and again. By now it was so real to him that he could occasionally forget that he had never really witnessed it. 

With that image to keep him amused, Tom told himself he didn't want to know what might be behind him. He didn't look at all until a somewhat louder noise emanated from his left -- a bit ahead rather than behind this time. 

This time he did pause and investigate a bit further. Could be a wild animal this time, he told himself, and he would need to be aware of that. Through the trees he could see a drop-off to a hill, leading down to a creek that he suspected was mostly frozen this time of year. Whatever he'd heard, it was probably safely across the creek. Might as well go have a look anyway, he decided. 

Already used to walking without a path by then, Tom had little trouble picking his way through the trees as he approached the top of the hill. Drawing closer, he saw that it was quite steep and, as he had guessed, the water below was icy. Must have been an ice floe breaking away or running into another, he concluded. Feeling relieved, Tom let go of the tree he'd been holding onto for balance on the bumpy, slippery ground, and turned to head back to his trek. 

He let go a moment too soon, for as he turned, his left foot slipped off a rock and pitched out from under him and down the hill. Tom instinctively bore down on his grip with his right foot, but his balance was gone. He grabbed at the outer branches of the tree he'd let go of, but they were small and brittle in the cold and when Tom had regained his bearings, he was flat on his back sliding head-first down the hill. Recalling the deadly icy water below, he thrashed around and felt for a hand-hold anywhere beneath the snow -- a rock, a depression in the ground, a root -- but found none. Unable to see the frozen creek from his angle, he was aware only of the ground disappearing under him when he reached the end of the hill. Giving up on stopping the fall, he grabbed at his head and hoped his arms would break the fall as best they could. 

In the long moment between feeling the ground fall away and hitting the water, Tom once again thought he saw Darcie looking down on him from the ridge. But there was little use in worrying about that in that moment, and there wasn't even time for him to formulate a cry for help.

Tom was resigned to a cold, hard splash into the water and just hoped he could avoid breaking any bones on the rocks and ice. To his relieved surprise, the water enveloped him harmlessly when he slipped in head first and he found himself borne back up towards the surface without a scratch. With that rush of relief out of the way, he braced himself for the seemingly-warm water to bite him with its severe chill. But as he swam up to the surface and got his bearings about him again, it dawned on him that the warm water hadn't been a trick of his imagination or a shock to the system -- it really was warm. 

There was little time for Tom to be confused, though, as he hadn't had a chance to take a deep breath before hitting the water and he could feel his lungs begging for air. Bursting to the surface, he gulped in the air gratefully, surprised that the breeze that met him felt balmy, nothing like the icy air he had expected. Equally surprising was the smell of the sea that mingled in the air his lungs so welcomed in. Back in control at last, he looked around himself and realized it wasn't a trick of his senses; he was indeed floating in the ocean rather than the creek he'd seen before his fall. The salt water, the waves, the seagulls -- all the signs were there. 

Confused and astounded, but most of all concerned about getting out of the water in his heavily wet clothes, Tom began treading water and looked around for the shore to swim back to. It wasn't far, he saw, though it was far enough to make swimming in his winter clothes a chore. 

But it wasn't the shore of the creek in the woods that he had tumbled into. From where he had surfaced, it looked more like a tropical beach. As he swam closer -- expending tremendous energy with every stroke, for his winter coat was sopping and heavy but he didn't dare remove it, not knowing what awaited on the shore -- he realized that there were people on the shore, pointing and calling for him. Men and women alike, and so far as Tom could tell, each and every one of them was unabashedly naked. Maybe he had bumped his head on the floor of the creek after all, Tom thought. But there was nothing to do but swim for the shore he could see, real or not. 

Slowly but surely Tom made his way into safer waters. When at last he was in shouting distance of the nudists on the shore, he saw her again: Darcie, naked as the rest of them, her body just as dazzlingly beautiful as he had always imagined it. This time she was definitely there, and she swam effortlessly past Tom. With a serene smile, she shot past him through the water, close by but unmistakably on a different course, so he could see she was not there to try to save him. 

Nevertheless he called out to her. "Hey! Darcie!" He could hear the panic and exhaustion in his own voice as he did. She made eye-contact with him for a split second, and gave him a knowing smile, but continued on her way. 

Confused and growing disoriented, Tom whirled around in the water to look after the strange memory and see where she was going. He could see the barest outline of an island on the horizon, much too far for him to have any hope of reaching in his condition. Guided by the calls on the beach, he turned and headed back for the shore. When he got close enough to sense that the water might be shallow enough to stand in, Tom reached down with his foot. The last thing he would remember was making contact with solid ground and knowing he wouldn't drown after all. 

When he awoke, Tom had no idea how long he may have been asleep -- hours? days? -- or even if he had truly been asleep. His doubt about all that only increased as his eyes adjusted to the dim light from the lone window in the bedroom where he found himself. It was a rustic-looking bedroom, like something he might have expected in a mountain cabin. Clean but spare, with homemade-looking blankets hanging on the walls and boxy but comfortable furniture. There was no sign of electricity or anything else too modern, except for what appeared to be a wooden bathtub at the other end of the room. At his end, he found himself in a large old-fashioned bed with worn but comfortable sheets, an oil lamp on the bedside table behind him, and his clothes looking wrinkly as they hung drying on a chair. Looking closer, he saw a fireplace behind the chair, but no fire. Indeed, he then realized, there was little need for a fire. In the dying hours of sunlight, the air was quite warm, something like what he'd have expected of a summer day. 

But not a day like the one I woke up in this morning, he mused. 

Whatever fate he had fallen into, Tom realized, at least it was a comfortable one. Despite his ordeal he was uninjured as far as he could tell, and the surroundings were lovely. But what could have explained falling into a creek in winter and waking up in the ocean in summer? Had he perhaps drowned in the creek and gone to heaven? And if it is heaven, Tom wondered hopefully, shouldn't there be at least one beautiful woman around here somewhere? 

He had a few more minutes to ponder that matter before it was answered with a knock at the door. "Anybody awake in there?" came a female voice.

"Yes," Tom answered, realizing for the first time that his voice had been affected by his fall. Though he felt fine, he sounded croaky like he so often did after a bad cold. 

The door opened, and Tom looked up to see a fair, slightly chubby woman in a long white dress of the type he remembered from Thanksgiving plays at school. She wore no makeup, much like the hippie women back in town whom Tom was so fond of, and her dark hair hung in wavy curls all the way to her waist. She looked delighted to see him awake. "Well, welcome back, Tom!" she said cheerfully.

Tom started to sit up, but changed his mind when he realized he was naked under the sheets. Observing her dress, he said, "Wow, I guess I did hit my head on a rock. Hard enough to send me back a century or two!"

The woman laughed. "I'm delighted to see you haven't lost your sense of humor after what you've been through. Of course, I don't know what you were like before, Tom. So how are you feeling?"

"Confused," Tom admitted. "Where am I and how do you know my name?"

The stranger gathered up her skirt and sat on the edge of his bed. "Mascawad, Maine; and your name was on your identification card. I've never seen a card like that before; it looks positively ancient. I didn't know they still made those anywhere!"

"You read my..." Tom looked at his clothes on the chair by the fireplace, and then saw his wallet and keys lying alongside them, and his face turned pink. "And you also must have taken my..." He pulled the sheets up to his neck defensively. 

The woman laughed. "Oh, Tom, I am sorry I read your private documentation. But I am a doctor, and when an unconscious patient is brought out of the sea, it is important that we know all we can about who it is." More tenderly she added, "And I assure you that I did not ravage you in your sleep." She touched his hand through the covers. "Mind you, the flesh was willing, for me and, judging from your body's state when I undressed it, for you too. But I do have my moral standards, and that includes asking first. Also, I had no way of knowing if you were up to date on your sperm pills."

"My sperm pills?" 

"Why, yes," the doctor said. "I don't know where you came from, but surely a man your age is on the pill?"

"The pill. Isn't that for women? I mean, a male pill is a great idea, but...and another thing, you said this was Mascawad. This is nothing like Mascawad! I know, I woke up there this morning. It's miles from the ocean, and it's the middle of winter. It was frigid and snowy just this morning! Is this a joke? And since when do doctors dress like the Pilgrims?"

The doctor looked concerned, then delighted, then a mixture of both. She stood up a bit defensively. "Oh, dear God," she said. 

"You're telling me!" Tom said. "I feel like I'm in some fantasy movie where the guy hits his head and wakes up in the past."

"You're not in the past, Tom, that's for certain," the woman said. "I'm sorry, I haven't even introduced myself. My name is Sarah and I'm one of the Mascawad town doctors."

"Well if I'm not in the past, Doctor Sarah, where am I? Not Mascawad!" Despite Sarah's gentle demeanor, Tom now felt terrified. He tried to cover it up with the appearance of anger, but found he was no good at playing tough-guy while naked in bed in the presence of a beautiful woman who had evidently considered raping him in his sleep.

"Tom," Sarah asked calmly. "When you had your accident this morning, did you see anyone else?"

"Yeah," Tom admitted cautiously. "I thought I saw her a couple of times, and then I know for sure I saw her a couple more times. A beautiful woman with long hair like yours, but a redhead. Someone I knew when I was a kid, but I hadn't seen her since then. Last time it was when I was swimming to shore, and she swam right past me the other way. Naked, too! Strangest thing I've ever seen."

Sarah's face melted into a joyful smile. "Good heavens, you really are, then!"

"I really am what?" Tom dropped the defensive act, now he wanted to know just what was going on, and he could see she knew the answer."

"This woman you saw," Sarah probed, ignoring his question for the moment. "You said she was beautiful."

"The most beautiful woman I've ever seen!" Tom confirmed. "I, well, you're a doctor, I can tell you this safely: I fantasized about her for years if you know what I mean. Probably the sexiest woman alive if you asked me to name one. But I was too scared at the time to appreciate that."

"You've seen Margarethe, then, and lived to tell about it," Sarah mused, twirling happily around the space beside his bed. "This is a miracle!"

"Margarehte? Lived to tell?"

"That's the red-haired woman you saw today, Tom. Did you see her before your accident as well as after?"

Tom sat up, no longer caring what Sarah saw. "I thought I did, yeah."

"Oh, you really saw her. Tom, you're in the future."

"What?!" Tom laughed now. "You're dressed like it's 1700 or something, there's no electricity in here, and you're telling me it's the future?"

"I'm guessing you're from no later than the year 2050 or so, is that right?" Sarah looked deadly serious now, though still pleased.

"2012." Tom couldn't believe he was taking the question seriously. 

"Marvelous," Sarah said. "You must be the one we've been waiting for! You're quite the gentleman for your time, too, from what I've heard of those days. You must forgive me, Tom, there are a million questions I'd love to ask you but I have no idea where to begin. Margarethe has caught her fair share of men from your era -- never women thus far, only men -- but she has let none survive before now. That means you've obviously got a good heart..."

"Let none survive?!" Tom pulled the sheets back up again and crouched defensively against the headboard. 

"Oh, Tom, I'm sorry! That must sound horrible to you. No, I assure you, your life is safe in our hands. If Margarethe found you pure of heart, then no harm will come to you here. To say the least. Tom, you may well be our savior."

Tom was not yet convinced. "Me, a savior? I'm an underachiever from the slums! Where is 'here' anyway? You keep saying it's Mascawad, but it looks nothing like Mascawad!"

Sarah went to a table under the window. While there, she shut the window, for the air outside was finally cooling off in the sunset. "Oh, it is, Tom." She picked up what Tom soon recognized as a newspaper, and brought it to the bed. The Mascawad Times, he saw, though the masthead looked quite different from the one he'd glanced through that morning while waiting for Jim to get dressed. "Look at the date," she told Tom, handing him the paper.

Tom took the paper in his hands and did as he was told. April 23, 2945.

"That's right, Tom," Sarah said from beside the fireplace, where she was striking a match to light the waiting logs. "Congratulations, you've come nine hundred years into the future."

"This is a joke, right?" Tom was frustrated. 

"I can't blame you for believing so," Sarah told him gently, sitting again on the bed. "But when you get up tomorrow, you'll be more than welcome to have a look around the town and you'll see it isn't." She smiled at Tom, who at last responded in kind. "Now, like I said, I have a million questions for you about the twenty-first century. But first I guess I'd better answer a few things for you. First of all, Margarethe. She's what we call a sensor. She has a unique gift, found in very few women and extremely few men in our time, to guard the doors to the past."

"Doors to the past?"

"There are a few scattered throughout the world, Tom, including one just off the coast of Mascawad on what used to be dry land in your time. Today it lands in the ocean, and that's how you ended up there. They were apparently created somehow during the Hot Era, when most of our ancestors had fled to the far north and a very few stubborn people insisted on staying behind. Those who did not perish in the miserable polluted heat, gained a sort of supernatural connection with the land, at least that is our best guess. Most of us can't sense or use the doors to the past. I can't. No one in Mascawad can except Margarethe, actually. Her family was among the few ancient Maine families who stayed here in the Hot Era -- oh, I guess I should tell you about the Hot Era, actually."

"Please."

"It started most likely during your lifetime, Tom. Global warming was what you called it then, I believe?"

"That's right," Tom said. "Everyone knows about global warming."

"Well, yes," Sarah continued with a touch of sadness now. "Everybody knew about it, but as you probably know, nobody did anything about it until it was too late. And by sometime toward the end of your century, Tom, a catastrophe of some sorts came about. A heat-wave like no one today can imagine, they say. The earth just couldn't take all humanity's abuse anymore. Even when things were approaching the point of no return, they say, too many people just refused to see what was before their eyes until the oceans rose up. And they rose, Tom. Several miles of coastline from your time, have been underwater ever since. That's why you fell through a door on dry land and ended up in the ocean."

"Good heavens." Tom felt newly ashamed of his job. But no one here and now needed to know about that. 

"Extremely few of us know just what happened next or how many millions perished as a result. Today that information is known only to the highest of scholars, and they are sworn to secrecy, for it would be of no use for us to know just how horrid it all was now that we have succeeded in putting those nightmares in the past. For generations now we have worked very hard to stay in harmony with the land, and there is too much risk of people glorifying the evils of the past that nearly wiped us out. Even as it is, there is talk of reviving so very many of the creature comforts that nearly destroyed the environment in ancient times. Some things are best lost to history."

Tom was near tears. If it was a joke, it certainly wasn't a very funny one, especially as he recalled his own rationalizations for his environment-killing job. Was this all a cosmic joke from his conscience?

"What we do know is that most of the survivors had to head for the far north. Canada, Siberia, Greenland, and a few other places. Very few were brave enough to stay in their homelands and adapt to the new climate and the new topography from the rising oceans. Many who did stay perished. It was centuries before many great cities from your time were fit for humanity again. In any event, Margarethe's ancestors are among the few who stayed, and somehow they have maintained a bond with your era that allows access to our door to the past. Somehow."

"Then Margarethe brought me here?"

"In a manner of speaking, Tom."

"Why? It's not like I was going to hurt any of you from the past or anything."

"Perhaps that's why she brought you here, Tom. Certainly it's why she didn't kill you."




The Relapse Door



"Kill me? Why would...I don't get it, Sarah. I don't get it at all. Even if everything you're telling me is true, why do you care about who's poking around in the woods nine hundred years ago?"

"Because if one or two of us can travel back to your time, it is possible someone in your time can pass through the door to the future. And Tom, knowing what little we know about your times and the horrible end they came to, we don't want to revisit those values upon our healing world. Don't be offended; like I said, Margarethe obviously sensed that you were not such a person. Indeed, she might well have suspected you were the extremely rare example of a male with the gift of a sensor."

"A male with a gift," Tom couldn't resist chuckling. "I must say I like hearing that from a woman who has seen me naked."

Sarah breathed deeply. "Yes, well, Tom, I do apologize for invading your privacy, but it was necessary to save you from a deathly chill -- even in our warm weather -- to remove your clothes." More playfully she added, "And I must agree, my friend, you are a male with a gift."

"I guess you must be from another time," Tom mused, returning her grin. "In my era, doctors would never talk to a patient like that."

"Yes, well, many things have changed with regards to gender relations in the centuries since yours. Mostly for the better, in my opinion, and I think you'll find most women agree with me. Ah, which reminds me, the sperm pill."

"Yeah, what is that?" Tom asked, though by now he had a guess.

"In your era there was a birth control pill for women," Sarah recited. "Surely you know of that."

"Of course," Tom said. "I might be a guy but I'm not clueless."

"I can tell," Sarah agreed. "In any event, Tom, that medication is still available to women today, for alleviating monthly discomfort among other things; but our society has long since arrived at an important realization: since women shall always bear the brunt of pregnancy and childbirth, it is only fair that men are responsible for preventing that eventuality when it is not desired. So it is now the man who takes the appropriate medication. It's a surprisingly simple blend of organic and synthesized substances; but as you are not a doctor I shall not bore you with details you might well not understand."

"No, I no doubt wouldn't understand," Tom admitted. "But I would certainly agree with you that it's a great idea."

"As I thought you might," Sarah agreed. She was trying to continue looking prim on the edge of the bed, but Tom noticed her crossing her legs tightly and wiggling them together a bit beneath her skirt. The fire was roaring to life in the fireplace, and Tom was increasingly suspicious that it wasn't the only source of heat in the dimly lit room.

"And you thought this because I looked good naked," Tom added with a wicked grin. If this was a joke, he was now enjoying it, and he was even aware of a growing tent in the bedclothes. Knowing Sarah could see it too, and that she had seen it before when he was out cold, only made him harder.

"Another thing that has changed, my friend, is that women are no longer necessarily seen as the fairer sex in our times. The dark shadows of your era and its apocalyptic ending have left us all rather less inhibited." As she explained this, Sarah made no effort to hide her hungry smile, and she caressed Tom's hard cock through the sheets.

"Yeah, I thought I saw everyone on the beach was naked," Tom recalled, his breath growing heavier at Sarah's pleasant touch. "Adults only, I trust."

"We keep the young ones away from parts of the town where nudity is common," Sarah acknowledged. "It is still an adult decision to go natural; that has not changed." While explaining this, she got up and lit the oil lamp on the bedside table. Soon the darkened room was awash in pleasant low light, and it looked even more like Tom's earlier impression of heaven. 

Tom was grinning widely by now, and he had sat up and let the sheet fall away to reveal his naked torso, which was in fine condition from all the exercise his job afforded. "Tell me, then, Sarah. You are an adult. Do you go natural?"

She stood up, still grinning ear to ear. "I thought you might never ask, Tom. It is time for my evening bath anyway. Would you care to join me?"

"Wouldn't miss it for all my future," Tom quipped. 

The sun was down by then, and Sarah stood up and returned to the window to draw the curtains. "Some of us still have some standards," she explained. As soon as she had the curtains closed, Sarah gathered up her dress and pulled it up around her hips, revealing a shapely but hairy pair of legs followed by a wild, untrimmed thatch of pubic hair, a matronly paunch that looked pleasantly natural, and finally a pair of large breasts cupped in place by a pale yellow bra. "We haven't given up all worldly comforts from your days," Sarah assured him as she reached behind herself to unfasten the bra. "I would be sore indeed at the end of the day without this."

Tom nodded as he drank in the sight, still working past the shock of her unshaven legs. He had heard of such things, especially among the more granola gals in Mascawad who of course would never let a logger like him in their beds; but this was the first he could recall of seeing such a novelty in the flesh. With his initial repulsion passing, Tom now found he rather liked the look -- a perfectly natural progression from her full bush to her equally natural legs, a sign of peace with nature and strong virility, and the taboo was appealing once the shock had passed. In all her imperfect, un-classical beauty, Sarah was magnificent. 

Sarah realized quickly what had caught his attention. "Ah, yes," she said. "I have read my share of social history of your times. In the modern world, natural beauty is no longer anything to be ashamed of, my friend. If you don't appreciate female body hair, I'll tell you very frankly that you had best learn to."

"I think I just did," Tom said, pulling back the sheets to reveal that he was harder than ever. 

"Good for you!" Sarah said, opening her arms. "You are going to adjust wonderfully to your new life here."

Tom eagerly embraced his new friend, holding her tightly for a moment before she excused herself to prime the pump for the hot water. "It's just behind the tub here," she said, pointing at a door at the far end of the room.

Tom followed, enjoying the sight of her long hair drifting gracefully behind her down to her shapely behind. Then a thought occurred to him. "Hey, wait a minute," he said, and was greeted with the welcome sight of Sarah turning to give him another full frontal view of her body in response. "What did you mean by 'my new life'? Am I here to stay?"

"That is not for me to decide," Sarah said. "It may or may not be for you to decide. In any event, you will most likely be here for a few days before we can know anything for certain."

"A few days..." Tom gazed longingly at Sarah's body and wondered.

"Oh, don't concern yourself with me, my friend." Sarah turned back to the pump-room door and opened it. "Sex is but sex, and I shouldn't expect you to stay forever after one evening of fun."

Perhaps, Tom thought to himself, he had in fact died and gone to heaven! Then he promptly hated himself for being so indifferent to Sarah's needs. Then he reasoned that she had all but ordered him to be that way. 

Sarah gathered the hose from the pump room and carried the end to the tub. It was a large hose, and looked fairly heavy. As Tom watched her work, he welcomed the chance to study her body a bit more. Sarah wasn't just natural, she was strong and, despite being a bit overweight, in good shape. The hose was no challenge to her, and the muscles in her arms flexed impressively as she pumped the warm water in from the old-fashioned looking machine. If he really was stuck in some post-apocalyptic future, maybe things had in fact changed for the better. "Go ahead and get in," she told Tom over her shoulder. Tom did as he was told, continuing to admire her shamelessly as he stepped into the shallow warm water and waited for the level to rise. 

When it was up to his neck, Sarah looked over and was satisfied. After putting the hose away, she climbed into the bath with Tom and without concerning herself with invitations, snuggled up beside him in the hot water. "Well, I have little doubt you are thoroughly clean after your long swim today," she said. "But I shall require a good scrubbing and it's only fair that I return the favor." She produced a cake of homemade soap and a washcloth from a ledge just under the tub rim. "Surely a man of your age and experience knows how to wash a woman's body."

"I'd love to learn," Tom said with a grin. 

He accepted the soap from her, and Sarah took a deep breath and dunked herself so all her body would be wet, then stood up in the tub before Tom. Dazzled by the welcome close look at her natural beauty glistening in the firelight, he eagerly set about the work that did not feel like work at all to him, but rather like traveling through the ages to a rustic time and place where lust and beauty were all that mattered. He wrapped the soap in the washcloth and rinsed them in the water, then rubbed them together for lather just like he recalled doing back home when he took a bath every other night. When the cloth was as soapy as he could get it, he stood behind Sarah and rubbed gently between her toned shoulder blades, then outward to each shoulder and down her strong back. He scrubbed a bit harder in the small of her back, earning a mild groan of approval. Then it was on to her buttocks, and on down the back of each leg. He longed to reach between them, but that could wait. Strong as she was, Tom felt rather like he was in the presence of a fine work of art, and handled her flesh with a reverent gentle touch. Unbeknownst to him, that touch was building an enormous desire within Sarah's loins. Tom was to be pleasantly surprised at just how liberated the women of the future had become, and how his respectful scrubbing technique was to unleash the joy of that liberation upon him!

When he reached her legs, he knelt down on the tub floor and wrapped the soapy cloth around each leg one at a time, enjoying the up-and-down swish of her leg-hair as he rubbed all the way down to the waterline. Then he made his way around to face Sarah. Still on his knees, he was at eye level with her soaked ladygarden. "Nice view," he quipped, admiring her natural feminine charms.

"Thank you!" she said with a mild laugh. 

After soaping up the washcloth again, he ran it carefully, almost reverently, through her pubes. Sarah wiggled a bit at his touch. "Too much?" he asked.

"No, you're fine," she reassured him. "Just very intense. I had all afternoon to think of your body, after all. And you certainly know how to touch mine."

Flattered and embarrassed at once, Tom patted Sarah's triangle a few more times with the cloth and then rubbed upwards to her belly. His touch there tickled her, and she allowed a relaxed laugh as he scrubbed. "Oh, that feels wonderful, Tom. You have a very gentle touch."

"Thanks." Then it was time to stand up and pat the soapy cloth around her breasts. Something told him not to rub there, but rather to pat lightly. Even as it was, his gentle patting stiffened her nipples, which were small and perky against the large breasts. Once they were done, her chest and neck were almost an afterthought. "Would you rather wash your own face?"

"That would be easiest," Sarah said. "Then it's your turn." She took the washcloth and scrubbed her face quickly, then knelt down to rinse off. The suds emanating in every direction from her body, she then emerged again. "Lovely, Tom," she said, and then set about washing his body just as gently as he had washed hers. Only on his hard cock did she linger longer, running her hand up and down it several times with the soap to keep things smooth. 

"Uhhhhhhhhh," Tom exhaled. "Feels so good."

"And that's just the beginning," Sarah assured him. After rinsing it off with the pleasantly hot water, she took the tip in her mouth and thrilled him with one firm lick. She then continued her way upward, clearly getting a great deal of joy out of scrubbing his broad chest. Her touch there thrilled him to the core, and he gasped in pleasure at her strokes. "Lovely," she whispered as she gave it one final flourish. "Now rinse off and let's get in bed."

"You're staying the night?" Tom was delighted.

"Wouldn't miss this for anything, my dear," Sarah told him, pulling his hand down toward the water. Once he was rinsed off, Sarah pulled him to sit beside her and then took him in her arms. They relaxed silently in the still-warm water for a few minutes, before she gestured him toward the bed. "Towels on the shelf there," she whispered, pointing to a cabinet between the tub and the fireplace. "Hand me one, please."

Tom did as he was told, and enjoyed the crackling heat from the fire while he watched Sarah drain the tub and shut the pump room for the night. When dry, he draped the towel on a chair by his still-damp clothes and pulled back the covers, and stood uncertainly by the bed as if he still couldn't quite believe what was happening. 

Sarah was still rubbing her towel through her long hair when she arrived at the bedside. She tossed her towel atop his and then took Tom's still-hard cock in her hands. With an affectionate squeeze on it, she leaned down and kissed it playfully. Loosening her grip, she ran her hand lightly up and down his shaft, drawing a breathless gasp of delight from Tom just before she kissed his lips. With that sign of approval, she gripped and rubbed harder, and ran her other hand through his chest hair while kissing him again, more passionately this time. 

"Unhhhhhh...Sarah, oh! Oh oh oh...!" Tom closed his eyes and felt himself getting closer. He grabbed lightly onto her body for balance and, once he was balanced, took both breasts in his hands, drawing similarly vocal approval from her. 

Just as Tom was about to come, Sarah let go of his erection and placed both hands on his chest. She teased him there with a light ticklish touch, and then pushed him lightly back onto the bed. When he was settled there, Sarah climbed onto him. Her abundant long hair fell around him and blocked out the sight of anything but her face and her body, which now straddled his delightfully. "Now then, Tom," she said. "I find you a delightful mix of old and new, and I trust you shall enjoy the new from me."

Through his delight, Tom had one last reservation. "What about the sperm pill? I've never had one, you know."

"Tom," Sarah said matter-of-factly, rocking back and stroking his chest playfully again. "I'm a doctor, and I know how to handle unforeseen problems. I'm also a woman, and I know when the moon is in the right place for me to have no such concerns." She took his hands in her own and placed them on her thighs, where the taboo hairiness delighted his touch. He loosened the grip and dragged his fingernails along her legs, thrilling to the ticklish sensation he was sure he was creating for her. "Now then, my dear," Sarah whispered. And she leaned in and kissed him again, a gentle yet intense kiss just like the ones he had always imagined from the openminded gals back in his own time who had wanted nothing to do with him because of his job. Maybe one of them was her great-grandmother thirty times removed or some such, Tom wondered as he rubbed her legs with growing abandon and gasped with pleasure at the sensation of her gentle touch on his chest.

Making love to my future!, he thought as he melted into her embrace and moved his hands upward to her breasts, kneading them gently and feeling her nipples stiffen again while she moaned pleasantly to his touch. While she rubbed her hands up and down every inch of his body, he could feel his hard cock rubbing against her furry undercarriage as if trying to work its own way inside. But Tom had other ideas first. Slowly he worked all ten fingers downward from her breasts to her large but toned belly. Sarah's breathing grew heavier and louder as he did, perhaps in anticipation of his next stop. "Oh god. Tom!" He lingered on her abdomen with one hand, and reached the other all the way down and then in.

"OH!" Sarah was a loud one, no doubt about that. Tom had always liked him that way, and clearly she would not disappoint. 

With her first exclamation giving way to a sustained moan, Tom rubbed gently with the come-hither motion of his fingers that had never failed him yet. It didn't fail with Sarah either, for she was soon gasping for breath between moans, each one louder than the last, and wiggling her legs back and forth as if to draw him in further. When her intensity seemed to be at his limit, Tom slipped his fingers out and used them to guide his cock in.

"Ohohohohoh...Yesssssss!" Sarah ground her hips hard into him and was soon slamming up against him as hard and deep as she could reach, voicing guttural joy with each thrust. Leaning back, she threw her wild hair back behind as she ground into Tom. With his hands free now and plenty of room to work with, Tom reached down and ran his fingers through her bush, flicking at her clit with his thumb. 

At that touch her moans grew into outright screams. "UNGH! UNHHHHHH!" He knew just when she plunged off into her orgasm, as she rocked back forward and kissed him hard on the mouth again. "Now you!" she said breathlessly, rocking back and forth even harder than before. Tom came before he even knew he was close, with a liberating yell of his own as he went off the deep end, and soon they were entwined flat on the bed in one another's arms. 

"Some things never change, I suppose," Sarah said dreamily, stroking his hair. "Like a great roll in the sack."

"Yeah," Tom agreed. "No doubt about that." And soon they were both asleep. 

In the morning, Tom woke up certain that it had all been a dream. But that lasted only until his eyes adjusted to the morning light and he saw Sarah gazing happily at him through her own sleepy eyes. Sarah provided fresh clothes for Tom -- he saw no point in even bothering to ask how she knew the size, for nothing was a surprise to him anymore by then -- and once they were washed and dressed, she guided him outside to a café in town. 

The first venture into Mascawad killed off the last of Tom's suspicions that this was a joke or a dream, for the town he saw bore only the most passing resemblance to the one he remembered. The lay of the streets was similar, the town square was laid out as before and the fountain in the center was still there, though it looked much older than he recalled. Of course it does, he reminded himself, now it's nine hundred years older! The women were all dressed like Sarah, in long full dresses, while the men wore baggy pants and pullover shirts and most were unshaven to varying degrees. Everyone seemed to have longer hair as well. Tom got a few fascinated looks as they made their way to the café, and he overheard at least one "it's him!" as Sarah guided him.

"I knew word would get out quickly," Sarah said. "But don't worry, it's only small-town gossip."

"That's another thing that never changes, I guess," Tom said. 

But even as he spoke, Tom discovered it was rather worse than small-town gossip. "Tom!" called out a rebellious-looking youth from across the cobblestoned street. "Is it true about airplanes?! Have you flown?"

"What about cars?" called another boy behind him. "Have you seen a Ferrari? Are they real?!"

"Off with you!" Sarah ordered them curtly. "None of that here! Do you want to be the ruin of us all?"

Somehow Tom knew not to ask what had so upset her. "Mascawad sure has changed," he said by way of changing the subject.

"The climate here only became bearable for most of us about a hundred years ago," Sarah told him. "My great grandparents were pioneers here. They helped redo the streets and the town square; those were nearly all that was left. You can see more about the restoration in the town museum," she added, pointing at what Tom recognized as the middle school. "It was one of the few buildings left standing from before the Hot Era. Regrettably, some of the relics there have inspired longing for some potentially hazardous products. That's the attitude you saw from those boys."




The Relapse Door



"So were your ancestors from Mascawad?" Tom asked her. "Is that why your family came back here?"

"No, my ancestors were from a place called, oh, I can never recall the name...Floda? Floridium..."

"Florida?" Tom asked.

"Ah, yes, that's it. Florida."

"I've never been there," Tom admitted. "But I've heard the beaches are terrific. Have you been?"

"It isn't there anymore," Sarah said.

At the corner of 4th and High -- or so it had been called in Tom's day -- Sarah guided him into a restaurant on the spot where Tom recalled the post office. As she led him through the swinging doors between the white pillars that marked the building, a cheer came up from inside. "It's him!" "Welcome!" And all sorts of oohs and ahhs from the children.

"I'm afraid you'll have to get used to that," Sarah told him, pushing him quickly towards a stairwell to the right while Tom waved at the grateful strangers. "I hate to put so much pressure on you, but it's just as well you know what you may be up against."

"Against?" Tom asked. I didn't see anybody against me there!"

"There are certain things I haven't told you yet," Sarah admitted, guiding him up the stairs. "That's what breakfast is for." Atop the stairs, she directed him along the balcony to a private dining room with glass doors. Inside the room, a bald man with a dark beard was sitting at the table, dressed in a blue coat and work pants, with his hat beside him on the table. When he saw Sarah and Tom, he jumped up and came to the door to greet them.

"Tom! It is an honor, sir," and he held out his hand for Tom to shake. "I am Professor Baron. I'm here to brief you."

"Brief me on what?" Tom asked. "Sir, I'm happy to help if I can, but everyone here is treating me like some kind of hero and I don't even know what I'm supposed to do!"

"I'm afraid that's partially my fault," Sarah said. "Have a seat, both of you, and I'll fill in some of the blanks for you, Tom. Have you ordered breakfast, Baron?"

"Of course," the older man said. "Now just what does Tom know and what doesn't he know? We haven't got a lot of time."

Sarah poured two glasses of water from the pitcher, Baron having already helped himself, and bade Tom sit beside her. "Tom," she began, "I'm afraid I was less than completely honest with you last night. Everything I said was true, mind you, but there were things I left off, and now that we have had our fun I must tell all. One reason -- mind I say one reason -- why I was so eager to make love to you last night was --"

"Sarah!" Tom exclaimed, pointing at Baron.

"It's perfectly fine, Tom," Baron reassured him. Many of the things that were taboo in your day are perfectly acceptable to discuss today. Including sexual relations. Is that not correct, Sarah?" he added with a knowing grin, reaching out to touch her hand.

"Indeed it is," Sarah replied with a similarly amused grin. "The stories I could tell you about each other...but I digress. Tom, one of several reasons why I was so uninhibited last night is that there may be very little time for our idyllic little world. You may well be our savior; but if not, I fear we may be in the ground stages of another apocalypse."

"From the door to the past," Tom said, suddenly putting certain pieces together.

"So you did tell him about that," Baron said.

"No, actually," Sarah told him. "Tom, I think you're smarter than you give yourself credit for."

"Thanks," Tom said. "No, certain things just came together for me. Last night you said Darcie -- I mean Margarethe -- had caught a lot of men coming through the door, and not good ones."

"That's right," Baron confirmed. 

"I think I just realized who those other men were. And my son of a bitch boss not only lied to me about it back in my time, he also set me up to disappear just like they did. Maybe I was a guinea pig to see if it was safe to go in those woods."

"Yes, we understand the door to the past opens into what was a forest just before the apocalypse," Baron said. "Is that right, Tom?"

"Yes, and that forest was about to be destroyed. And it's partly my fault. I knew I shouldn't have taken that job!" Tom was near tears.

"What job?" Sarah asked. 

"Please don't hate me," Tom began, but he was interrupted by a rap at the door. There stood a plump young woman in a blue dress with a tray full of food. Sarah got up and let her in. 

"Breakfast is served," the young woman said cheerfully, setting down her tray. It was loaded with scrambled eggs, grilled ham, fresh bread and butter, and a steaming jug of what Tom hoped was coffee. 

"Thank you, Sally," Baron said, standing up and withdrawing a billfold from his pocket. "What is the charge this morning?"

"Oh, none, sir!" Sally said nervously, grinning down at Tom. "Mrs. Rogers saw who Sarah brought in here and she insisted that it all be on the house!"

"Really, Sally..." Sarah began.

"It's not my decision, ma'am, though I agree with it. I'm under strict orders not to accept any money from either of you!" Turning to Tom, she said, "Begging your pardon, Mister Tom, may I have your autograph?" She withdrew a tiny book and a pencil from somewhere in the folds of her dress and handed it to him.

"Why, certainly!" Tom, confused and scared though he was, couldn't deny the perks of his newfound celebrity. "To Sally, is it?"

"Yes, that's right," Sally squeaked, watching him write out the dedication and sign it. "Thank you so much!" To Sarah she said, "Might we be seeing you at the beach today, doctor?" As she asked, she cast an eager look at Tom, who knew she was already imagining what he looked like naked; he eagerly returned the favor.

"You might if you can keep your mouth shut about Tom's future whereabouts," Sarah told her.

"Oh, I can!" Sally reassured her. "Certainly I can! Thank you." Still grinning, she backed out of the room and shut the door carefully. 

"Now then," said Baron, pouring Tom some of the hot drink, which obviously wasn't coffee. "Have some floral tea and tell us what you were going to say about your job?"

"Floral tea," Tom repeated. "I've never had that."

"I do hope you were not expecting coffee, Tom," Sarah said. "We understand that was very popular in your time. Nowadays it is rare and expensive in this part of the world. The beans are grown only in the Midwest, and the shipping charges are rather high." 

"Coffee in the Midwest?" By now Tom was beyond surprise at such things, however, and he took a sip of the floral tea. Bitter but pleasant enough. "Hmm, that's great, thanks. Yes, my job, Baron. I am ashamed to admit it, actually, and I was even back then, but my best friend Jim, he had a cousin who had contacts with a logging company around here, and I'm afraid we both took jobs with it. I'm sorry. It's just that Jim and I both grew up quite poor, and like everyone else we were in denial about global warming, and...yeah. I'm sorry."

"Tom, there is no need to apologize to us," Sarah reassured him. "Your very presence here proves your heart was and is in the right place."

"Indeed," agreed Baron. "But we may need your help in fighting that logging company now. Allow me to make an educated guess that when you were abducted, this company was attacking the land around the door to the past?"

"They were about to," Tom admitted between bites of his breakfast. "My job was to scout out the land where they were to cut."

"I have suspected as much," Baron said. "As Sarah may have told you, Margarethe has encountered numerous men on similar missions to yours over the past several months. And you say your boss told you of their disappearance?"

"Yes and no," Tom said. "He said a few guys had disappeared, but he didn't say who or how many. And he made it sound like it was only a couple, the sort of thing people tell horror stories about. I thought he was only trying to spook me."

"There have been at least eight," Sarah said, "and those are just the ones Margarethe has chosen to tell us of. We fear there may have been more and she simply did not want to create a widespread panic. People are already feeling very uneasy as it is. It has been a steady occurrence for nearly eight months now."

"Just as long as our company has been cutting around here," Tom confirmed. "Christ, I knew I was wrong to take that job!" He threw down his utensils in consternation. "I'm so sorry!" he wailed.

"Tom," Baron said gently, "No one person bears responsibility for the apocalypse or what came after it. It was a societal failure; everyone failed to take the problem seriously until it was too late. Your mistake was only that: a mistake. Besides, you have the opportunity to help prevent it from happening again."

"How?" Tom asked. Then he turned to Sarah, "You mentioned this too. What is it we're afraid is going to happen?"

"Well, Tom," Sarah explained gently, "As your company encroaches upon the area around the door to the past, there is a very real risk of a deluge of people from your era slipping through. Margarethe may not be able to thwart them all at once."

"We have feared the possibility for some time," Baron added. "But until recently by your calendar, hardly any human being came anywhere near the door. Those who did were mostly of the variety who had a healthy respect for nature."

"Campers," Tom said knowingly. "That's what I hoped it would be like for Jim and me when we came up north."

"Jim?" Sarah asked.

"My best friend. The one who got me the job."

"I see," Sarah replied.

"In any event," Baron continued. "Now is the gravest danger we have had yet. Should the misplaced values of your time -- forgive me, Tom, but your generation did nearly destroy the world -- should they be imported into our own era, they will have a waiting audience with both morbid curiosity and a desire for the creature comforts of your era that got so out of control."

"You saw that yourself down in the street just this morning, Tom," Sarah reminded him. "The past few generations have worked very hard to learn from the mistakes of the past and live in harmony with the earth, within her capacity. But no sooner had the land below the far north become inhabitable again than an undercurrent of greed arose in society. Likely as not, it never really went away at all, but just lay undetected while we were all struggling to keep humanity from perishing entirely. Now that we have succeeded, the desire is growing to return to the old ways. We can trust you not to perpetuate those desires, Tom. But if people like those boys were to meet a real live relic of your era with fewer scruples, I fear we cannot be sure of containing the threat to our sensibility that has enabled us to live in such harmony with nature for these past centuries."

"I see," Tom said with a heavy sigh. He understood all too well, remembering how he had sold out his own principles for the promise of a decent paycheck. 

"Sensors, like Margarethe, have predicted for generations that one day a potential calamity like this could visit us from the past," Baron continued. "There is a prophecy, dating at least to the twenty-third century -- long before Mascawad was re-settled -- that one day a good-hearted member of the last generation before the Hot Era would appear among us, and that person would enable a closing of the rift in time, thus ending the risk of the pestilence of the past re-infecting us."

"It could be you, Tom," Sarah said. "The way Margarethe appeared to you indicates it is you."

"What do you mean, the way she appeared to me?"

"Like your ideal woman, you said, the one you had always lusted after."

"That's right," Tom said. "My swimming teacher, Darcie."

"Indeed," Baron continued. "Margarethe always appears to others as the most beautiful woman they can imagine. Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so each individual's ideal is different. Different height, shape, breast size, even her race varies. This Darcie is apparently your ideal, so you saw her in Margarethe."

"The prophecy also states that should the hero prevail, he and Margarethe shall live happily ever after," Sarah told him. "Just imagine, you could marry your very own sex goddess!"

"What the prophecy has never made clear, though," Baron said more soberly, "is whether that person would succeed in closing the rift. It says only that he 'would enable' it. As you know, Tom, we humans do not always accomplish all that we are able to do." 

"Story of my life," Tom admitted.

"Don't talk like that, Tom," Sarah said. "That is not the strong, capable young man I knew last night."

Tom poured himself some more tea and stood up with his mug. "I'm afraid that man wasn't who I really have been," Tom said. "Heck, that's why I was stupid enough to take that logging job in the first place. Well, that and Jim, anyway. Hell, I've always followed Jim around like a puppy, if you want to know the truth."

"So you really love this Jim, do you?" Sarah asked, looking a bit surprised. "I wouldn't have guessed that about you after how you admired my body and made love to me."

Tom laughed. "Not like that, I don't love him, no."

"Not that there's anything wrong with that," Baron said with a somber nod.

"That survived the Hot Era, did it?" Tom asked with another laugh.

"It's one of several proverbs from your era that are of obscure origin, but we have found them time and again in ancient books and manuscripts. We respect the scholarly literature of your time."

Tom managed not to laugh. "Wow. Anyway, yeah, I love Jim like a brother. That's one reason why I got in this mess. We've been best friends all our lives, always there for one another when nobody else was, I mean always. From age seven onward, anytime we needed to hide out from one of our mothers because of something we'd done, or if one of them had a boyfriend who was abusing us, or if someone else at school was hassling us, we were always there for each other. Always had each other's back like it was our own. And there was one time when we were eleven, well, we never talk about it now, but I saved him from something really humiliating and ever since then I could count on him to be there for me like no one else. Sometimes he was all I had, life was like that in our neighborhood. We didn't feel sorry for ourselves or anything, we just did the best we could. But we wanted out."

"And this job enabled you to get out?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah!" Tom said. "That's the only reason why I let him talk me into taking it. Well, that plus we got to get out of our crummy hometown and up to the lovely Maine woods, even if we were also going to destroy them. It was only going to be for a couple of years, though, just long enough for us to make some serious cash and then we'd go off somewhere else and make a nice quiet living that wouldn't hurt anybody. Honest, guys, all I wanted in the end was for Jim and I both to find wives and settle down somewhere safe where our kids wouldn't have to put up with the garbage we had back home. A nice big house somewhere where they could ride their bikes after school and curl up in their nice safe bedrooms with their Harry Potter books." He paused for a gulp of tea. 

"Harry who?" Baron asked.

Tom nearly spat out his tea. "You lost that?!"

"Lost what?" Sarah asked.

"Tom," Baron said, "It is absolutely impossible to illustrate just how much was lost in the Hot Era --"

"Yeah, well then you just pulled off the impossible, man!" Tom interrupted. "Congratulations."

"I'm not sure what you're referring to," Baron said, "But it sounds like we have made a breakthrough of some sort with you."

"I guess so," Tom agreed. 

"Well then," Sarah said with a relieved look on her face. "Are you willing to try to close the rift?"

"I wouldn't know how," Tom said. "I want to help you folks, but what do I know about any of this?"

"The prophecy says the way shall present itself," Baron said. "And Margarethe shall guide you."

"She will present herself when the time is right," Sarah said. "All you need to do in the meantime is live among us."

"And if I do," Tom said. "I get Margarethe but I lose my life back in my own time?"

"Well, yes," Baron said. "But what's to lose? Life as you know it will be destroyed, most likely within your lifetime."

Tom looked out the window at the peaceful, happy streets. He wanted to love them, but there was something in the way. "Yes, but it's what I know. And there's Jim."

"You care that much for your childhood friend, do you?" Baron asked skeptically.

"Jim isn't just a friend. He's my blood brother. The only real family I ever had."

"I find that admirable," Sarah countered. "But tell me, Tom, would Jim support us in fighting for our environment if he were here?"

Tom knew the answer was no. But he also knew Jim was the only soul on earth who had never once let him down. "Probably." It was the strongest lie he could get away with. 

"Well if you're right," Baron said, "then the ways of the prophecy suggest you will have the opportunity to bring him to the light along with you. And he'll be welcome in our society if he is as pure of heart as you are. But tell me truthfully, Tom, and recall that our very survival may depend upon this: do you really believe he would be on the side of the good?"

Tom couldn't lie twice, but neither could he accept the truth. "Don't make me turn my back on my best friend, please!" He wanted to cry. "Look, if you think you can ask this of me, Tom, the fuckup runt of my old neighborhood, then surely you can count on Jim too."

"We shall see," Sarah told him, as gently as she could muster herself to sound. "But you must realize there comes a time when friendship cannot reign absolute supreme."

"I don't know about that," Tom said. "Jim or I might have been dead by now if we'd had that attitude back home."

"Perhaps this is a good time for that trip to the beach that Sally suggested," said Baron. "I do believe young Tom could use some time to process all that we have told him."

"Splendid idea, Baron," Sarah agreed. "Come, Tom, we can take the coach there."

"I haven't got any swim trunks," Tom said, half-playfully.

"Very funny!" Sarah said. 

On the horse-drawn cart to the beach, Tom caught the eye of several more admirers and a few more troublemakers with questions about television, computers and even nuclear power. Sarah fended them off one and all, and Tom was able to keep quiet until they got to the shore. She pointed to a patch of free sand not far from where the cart let off. "Let's stake our claim there," she told him. 

Just as Tom had seen the day before, the beach was pleasantly crowded with men and women of every size and shade, each one unabashedly nude. Tom actually felt slightly embarrassed to be clothed among them. He lost no time in pulling off his clothes, and was delighted to see Sarah doing the same. "It's so much freer like this, isn't it?" she asked.

"I'm certainly coming to enjoy it," Tom said, once again admiring Sarah's wonderfully rustic body in the warm sunshine. His shapely physique caught the eyes of most of the women and even several of the men in their midst, and he even received an approving whistle or to. That was certainly nothing like back home! 

Tom was feeling more confident by the minute, but he had one last question before he gave in entirely to his unexpected vacation. Turning to Sarah, who was already on her back and enjoying the sunshine, he asked, "Just what happens next? When do I have to help Margarethe save the world?"

"She will let you know, Tom," Sarah said. "You can be sure of that. Until then, relax and enjoy yourself. You saw the way Sally looked at you this morning at breakfast. She won't be the only one." Sarah patted the sand beside her. "Lie back and just wait, my friend."

Tom did as he was told; but due to the many joyfully nude women to be seen in every direction, there was one part of him for which lying down was out of the question. Sarah let out a good natured laugh at his cock standing at attention when he lay beside her. "Don't worry, Tom," she said. "No one here begrudges you that."




The Relapse Door



"I take it that's not taboo anymore either?"

"If it were, we'd all wear swimsuits here."

Tom could not deny the sensibility in that, nor did he find anything to complain about in the number of women who admired his body while frolicking by. He grinned back unabashedly at them all, whether he found them attractive or not; and he found the vast majority of them were attractive in one way or another. Tall, short, skinny, fat and in between, large- and small-breasted, shaved and hairy, skin tones of every color...clearly in the future there was far less body-shame and far more openmindedness, and Tom found that as beautiful as the acres of naked flesh he found on display in return for his own. The rush of the waves relaxed him further, and he allowed the cares of breakfast to mostly fade away for the time being. 

Tom had heard about nude beaches back in his own time, and he and Jim had even talked of going to one back in their teens. Tom, as usual, had been the one with cold feet. "I don't know, Jim, I hear they charge admission. You pay money so people can see you naked?!"

"You get to see them naked too. Just imagine all the pussy!"

"That's another thing. I hear sex is taboo there."

"That don't make any sense, Tom? Who the heck is going to go to a nude beach and not have sex on their minds?"

"They say it's about getting back to nature, not about sex, is all!"

"Yeah, right, Tom. You and your too-pure mind, bro."

Tom soon learned that in this world, Jim would have been right. There were couples kissing and touching without shame or apology on blankets, in the water, everywhere it seemed. Not everyone participated, but so far as Tom could see, no one objected. He could see why Sarah had been sure to tell him the beach was for adults only. Some things, he thought, should definitely remain taboo forever.

Of course, had Darcie wanted to mess with him in his younger days, Tom admitted to himself, he'd have let her. He'd have regretted it later, he knew that somehow. But the idea of living ever after with a woman in her image? Somehow he just knew his hard dick got even harder at that thought. 

As if to confirm that belief, he heard a whoop of approval nearby. "You made it!" exclaimed the same voice. 

Tom looked up. It was Sally, the waitress, wearing a grand smile and nothing else. Plump and unashamed of it like Sarah, her robust body just as inviting as her smile, she was joined by two similarly built friends who stood just behind her. All three looked delighted to see him. "See, I told you I could keep my mouth shut, Doctor Sarah!" she added.

"That you did," Sarah agreed. "Well done, Sally. Tom, why don't you join Sally and her friends for a swim?"

"Great idea," Tom agreed, basking in Sally's adoration and that of her friends. Sally eagerly offered her hand to help him up, and they were off to play in the waves. She introduced her two friends to Tom, but names had never been his strong point and he was already paying more attention to seeing how their breasts bounced freely every which way as all four of them splashed around in the water. None of the women seemed to mind in the least the attention Tom paid their bodies as they played; after all, he soon realized, they were just as titillated with him. What a great change that was from the attitude he and Jim always used to get back home!

Jim. He would love a setting like this, Tom thought to himself, only he'd probably whine about how they didn't all look like centerfolds. His loss, Tom concluded, as one of Sally's friends jumped at him and they tumbled together in a lovely wet embrace. She kissed him on the nose and splashed him, and Tom laughed with joy. 

Tom wasn't sure how long they played. Recalling how Sally had looked at him so adoringly that morning, he rather hoped they would get a little time alone at some point. That wasn't to be, for her friends were in no mood to let her have the hero to herself; but after some time Sally had had enough of mild play and waded out deeper into the waves. Tom eagerly followed, and soon found his penis in the vice-like grip of her hand as if she had him on a leash. 

Sally grinned unapologetically at the prize she had at long last captured. "I've been wanting to do this all day," she said huskily, the waves bobbing just above her breasts. Squeezing lightly and rubbing just a touch up and down his hardness, she added, "So how do you find the future?"

"A lot more interesting than the past, right now," Tom said with a grin. By then he had both Sally's breasts in his hands and was doing his own share of rubbing and gentle squeezing, which she showed every sign of appreciating. "You'd never see anything like this back home."

"Tom, you are home. Everyone is saying that!"

"Are they really?" Tom asked.

"Well," Sally looked more serious now, and she let go of his cock and slipped her arms around him. "Everyone who knows why you're here. We're not really supposed to talk about that because not everyone knows how much trouble we're in. I'm not even sure I do. I'm privy to some stuff I probably shouldn't know because of things I overhear at the restaurant. But then, a lot of us saw you swimming in from the door yesterday."

"Oh, you were one of the folks I saw here, were you?"

"Yes, my dear, and I thought how unfair that he's burdened with all those heavy clothes!" Sally laughed.

"No doubt you wanted to help me out of them," Tom grinned. 

"Of course! We live in a more liberated time, Tom. Now a woman can have a dirty mind too and not apologize for it."

"Yes," Tom agreed. "I can see there's a lot of great stuff you and your friends won't apologize for."

With a mischievous grin, Sally reached down again and regained her firm grip on Tom's manhood. "You got that right," she said. "Perhaps you're still a bit too uptight from your day's values, aren't you?"

"I don't know about that!" With that, Tom reached down between Sally's legs and tickled her vulva. 

Sally wiggled and squealed in delight. "Oh, I knew you were a naughty one too!" she exulted. Tom saw her friends approaching now, curious about the source of Sally's noise, but Sally wasn't prepared to give him up just yet. She reached out and placed his hand on her triangle and said, "Do that again, please!"

Tom did as he was told and got another loud approval from Sally. As if to fulfill one of his oldest fantasies, he soon found Sally's two friends eagerly awaiting their own turn with his fingers. They could shriek just as well as she could, and they were also effective at ganging up to tickle him back. A fine time was had by all, and Tom also enjoyed the attention of a few other women who had figured out who he was when at last he returned to the beach for more sunbathing. By then Sarah was busy with another man in the water, so any concerns he'd had of jealousy were set aside. 

He was chatting with a voluptuous blonde -- and thinking at least Jim would have approved of this one -- when Margarethe emerged gracefully from the waves. Or was it Darcie? Must be Margarethe, he rebuked himself as she stepped up to his gaggle of admirers. They knew who she was, and respectfully backed away as Tom sat up. 

Sure enough, it was Margarethe. Every inch of her glorious body looked just as Tom had always imagined Darcie looked under her swimsuit, though he realized now that after the pleasant revelation from Sarah the night before, she had a rather fuller bush than Tom had imagined for Darcie. But everything else -- the long legs, pert breasts with big nipples, and that mesmerizing red hair -- was just as he'd recalled from all those years of fantasies. But it was Margarethe. In a mellow voice that was far from the Darcie's husky hometown accent, she said, "Welcome, Tom." 

"Hello, Margarethe," Tom said uncertainly, wondering if there was some gesture of respect he was missing. He stumbled to his feet, feeling absolutely unworthy despite the hero's welcome he had enjoyed all day on the beach. Her smile and greeting and the memory of Sarah's encouragement were almost enough to put him at ease, but not quite. The beach had grown mostly quiet in Margarethe's presence, and Tom was vaguely aware of everyone regarding the two of them respectfully. Once again he felt like crying out that he was no hero. But of course that was out of the question. Not knowing what else to do, he stood before Margarethe in awed silence, his mind racing. 

"Follow me, please," Margarethe said in that same lilting tone. Without another word, she turned and waded back into the waves, then dove in once the water was up to her hips. Tom wanted to protest that he couldn't hope to swim as well or as far as she could. But she was already underwater and wouldn't have heard him. Tom saw no choice but to do as he was told. As he ran into the waves, a cheer went up from every corner of the beach; but Tom was too scared to acknowledge it or thank anyone. 

As he had watched Margarethe do, Tom dove in and swam for his life. Awkwardly at first, splashing far too much and recalling that he had spent more time lusting after Darcie than actually practicing anything she had taught him back in the day; he was sure he would run out of luck and drown any moment. But after a few strokes, he noticed his technique getting stronger and more efficient, and he found himself carried along in the current, guided effortlessly by Margarethe's smooth wake. There was little opportunity to look around, but each time he came up for breath he was aware of the beach receding further into the distance and miles of water in every other direction, Margarethe being the only sign of life a dozen or so strokes ahead; and to his surprise he was no longer frightened. He recalled seeing her swimming to the island yesterday, and somehow he knew he would make it there today. 

The swim may have lasted for an hour or two or more. But the longer it went on, the more serene Tom found himself feeling. He soon gave up trying to make any sense of it all, concluding that would only cause trouble, and trusted his arms and legs and the current to draw him along however long it might take. When at last he was aware of Margarethe standing on a beach ahead of him, he felt no more fatigued than he'd have expected after a normal workout. It was with an almost relaxed final burst of energy that he pushed himself until he was aware of the ocean floor coming up close beneath him, and stood up to walk the last few steps onto the island. 

"Welcome home, Tom," Margarethe said, opening her arms to embrace him for the first time when he ambled ashore. Tom eagerly returned the hug and found her body a heavenly mix of firm and soft, just as he had always imagined Darcie would feel in his arms. Feeling absolutely safe despite all that morning's dire warnings, he relaxed and exhaled deeply. Opening his eyes, he saw an imposing yellow house before him up the hill, and dark skies beyond. Looking behind him, he saw the sun was growing low over the horizon from which they had come. He guessed the swim had been a long one indeed!

"Thank you," Tom said, still uncertain of just how to address Margarethe even as she cradled him. "Please, I'm sorry, everybody back there was treating me like a hero, and I don't even know what I'm supposed to do next..."

"All in good time." Margarethe released him, but took both his hands in hers. "First things first, we must get you inside." She gestured to the front door of the house, and turned to walk him up the path. 

"You live here?" Tom asked. "Alone?"

"Until now, I hope," she said. 

"You hope?"

Margarethe guided him up the steps to the porch, then stopped. "I do indeed hope, Tom. My gift has been a burden as well, and it has often been just as well I live here on my own, for I have had to do horrid things to keep my people safe. I have always been to understand that one day my life's companion would arrive to aid me in my burden to close the door to the past, and then he and I would have peace and joy together. It may be you. That is to be determined, and quite soon at last."

"Good heavens, I hope everybody knows just who I am if they're expecting me to help you save them!" Tom exclaimed. "I wish you'd seen me back in my own time before you chose me."

"I did see you and I did not choose you, Tom."

"What?"

Margarethe meandered aside to a spot on the porch where the sun cast a long shadow behind her. The droplets on her wet bare skin twinkled delightfully in the dying light. Though unabashed about her nudity, she now looked almost shy as she spoke to him. "That is hardly important. Neither are the failures of your past, or your own feelings of inadequacy. You have a gift like mine -- not the same gift, but one that complements mine -- and there is value untold in you, whether you can see it or not. I have had the opportunity to see it from here, Tom; you shall come to understand how, and to see why it is that I believe you and I belong together. Completing the circle of my love is not a reward, but a validation of your own worth, and together we can right a horrible wrong that threatens us from long ago. But Tom, you must first believe in yourself, whatever your reasons not to."

Tom was moved and encouraged by her words, and in the tender moment he longed to hold her again. But when he made to do so, Margarethe held up her hands in a gentle reproof. "There is work to be done before we can consummate our bond," she told him. "And additionally I sense it is necessary that you conquer certain demons of your own with which I cannot help you. Come." With that she opened the door to the mansion, and bade Tom follow her inside. 

There were two stairwells just inside the door. Margarethe pointed him toward the right-hand one and started up the left-hand side herself. "I shall see you in the common room," she told him. "Wash yourself off in the shower, and you'll find all the clothes you could like to put on."

"I don't suppose I should even bother asking how you knew my size and my style," Tom said, obeying the directive. 

"By now you should not have to ask, my darling."

Atop the stairwell, Tom found himself in the largest bedroom he had ever seen, and suddenly he felt very tired after the marathon swim. But he had orders to follow, and soon he found his way to the bathroom. It was also huge, and well-stocked with towels and soap and everything else a person could dream of using to wash up. Already nude, Tom stepped beneath the large shower tap and turned on the water. He realized too late that he hadn't set the temperature, only to find the water fell at a perfect temperature for him. On further investigation he found no controls anyway. 

It was only after several minutes of scrubbing and rejuvenating that Tom realized the facilities he was using were far more modern -- by the standards of his era rather than the current one -- than anything he had seen back on the mainland. Perhaps Margarethe would explain this, perhaps she wouldn't, but in any case Tom found he was not surprised. It was quite possible he would never again be surprised by anything. With that settled, he was eager to see Margarethe again and learn what must happen next, so he completed his shower and toweled off hurriedly. 

Back in the bedroom, just as promised, he found a wealth of clothing that fit him perfectly. In a mood to dress up a bit for his lady, Tom slipped into a comfortable blue shirt of what felt like silk, pleated linen pants, elegant dress socks and navy blue loafers. He couldn't recall the last time he had had occasion to dress so nicely; then he reasoned with a laugh that whatever the occasion, it was well over nine hundred years ago. 

When he felt presentable, Tom looked around the room trying to determine where he was to meet Margarethe. He guessed at a pair of French doors just beyond the king-sized bed, and strode forth to open them. His guess proved correct, for he found himself in a well-lit foyer where Margarethe awaited him in a flashy green and white print dress. She was nearly as stunning as she had been in the nude, and Tom longed to take her in his arms. But he knew now that could not yet be. 

"My dear, you look wonderful for your age," Margarethe said with a wicked grin, turning to face him. "You're dressed perfectly for dinner, but there are some things I must show you before that. Come this way." Behind her was a set of doors identical to the ones through which Tom had come, but she set off for a third, single door that faced to Tom's right, toward the back of the house if his orientation was correct. 

She opened the door, and Tom followed her out of the opulent foyer and into what looked like a clean but old hallway. "Welcome to the Hall of Memories," she told him.

"The Hall of Memories," Tom repeated. "You are full of surprises." 

"There are certain things that, for the good of humanity, people like you and me must remember," Margarethe explained. "And there are things you should recall for your own edification. There are also some things that are best forgotten, but you will learn to tell the difference soon enough, I am sure." Stopping at one door, she turned the knob and stepped aside. "Behold."

Tom did as he was told, and saw a gray wasteland before him. Dead trees, abandoned cars and buildings, a blistering sun baking everything as far as he could see. "Let me guess," he said. "The Hot Era."

Margarethe nodded her confirmation. "That's Mascawad less than a hundred years after you came to town. We don't know exactly when, but it doesn't matter. And it stayed like this for a couple of centuries before anything could grow here again. My family remained here, though you can't see them from this vantage point. They suffered intensely and I have no idea why they did not abandon the land for the far north like so many others did; but they didn't. Such was the origin of the blessings and curses of my own life here." She shut the door and walked briskly down to the next one. "Now then," she said, opening it.

Tom stepped inside and found himself in his and Jim's favorite bar. Indeed Jim was at the bar drinking with a couple of their co-workers and a woman or two from town. "Cold as a witch's tit out there, isn't it?" one of the other guys said.

"I know, man," Jim agreed. "And here my best buddy won't shut up about global warming!"

"I heard about him!" said another. "Hasn't he been outside here lately? Can't you talk any sense into him, Jim?"

"Man, I try!" Jim said. "I love Tom like a brother, but he's just thick as a brick on this stuff."

"You idiot!" Tom shouted, but it came out like a whisper and no one heard. He went on anyway. "Don't you know what you're throwing away?!"

"They don't hear or see you, Tom," Margarethe told him. "You'd better come back outside. I only want you to understand just what we're up against. It might require drastic measures."

"Not against Jim," Tom said with finality. "He's my brother from another mother, never let me down and I won't let him down."

"I admire your loyalty," Margarethe said. But she did not sound pleased. Before she could say anything else, an alarm sounded. An ear-splitting alarm like Tom remembered from the time he and Jim had tried to break into the high school computer lab back home; they had only just gotten out of sight before the police were on the scene. Now as then, Tom grabbed at his ears and squinted. "Sorry!" Margarethe shouted; Tom barely heard her. She ran down the hall, her skirt swishing madly around her and Tom just behind her, and threw open a double door on the right. 

It was quieter and darker inside. "This will only take a minute!" she reassured Tom, who looked up to see a vast window that looked into a snowy forest scene. With a shock he realized it was the same forest from which he had been abducted. The door to the past, Tom realized with a shock. Before he had fully processed the view, Margarethe had already climbed up a ladder to a shelf overlooking the window. Without another word, she dove off the shelf and floated effortlessly through the window. 




The Relapse Door



Tom, bewildered, looked through the glass -- at least it appeared to be glass to him -- to see another woman appear in the snow where Margarethe had disappeared. Looking deeper into the gray scene, he saw a man...Mark, from his company, Tom realized. Could Mark be looking for him? 

Mark wasn't facing the door, so he didn't see the woman who had appeared where Margarethe had disappeared. Now she caught Tom's attention: a thin African American woman, with big hair and even bigger breasts, swathed in a prom dress. What on earth, Tom wondered...then he realized that she was Margarethe, appearing as Mark's ideal fantasy. At the same instant that Tom made that realization, Mark turned to see her. With a shocked grin he dropped the stick -- or maybe it was a rifle -- he was carrying, and turned to run. But he tripped over something and was soon out cold. Margarethe picked up the weapon and threw it somewhere; perhaps in the creek, Tom thought. Then she turned back to face the window, and leapt through. 

Back inside, Margarethe was once again Tom's vision of Margarethe, with the red hair and the green dress. "Don't worry," she told Tom, who was still gaping at Mark's still body. "He'll wake up in a few minutes and he won't remember anything. And if he's got any sense he'll never come near the door again."

"What if he does?"

Margarethe looked apologetically at Tom. "It's a matter of life and death that we keep them away from here, Tom," she said. "There must be casualties."

"So he'd have fallen through the door and drowned in the ocean?"

"If he was lucky," Margarethe said bluntly. If he made it to shore, well, I don't want to know what might have become of him should he begin attracting appeals to the dangerous past. That has never happened yet, if it makes you feel better. But I cannot promise it never will."

"Not unless we can shut the door," Tom said.

"Exactly," Margarethe said. "And I am afraid that may require some ugly actions on your part, Tom. That is why I showed you the wasteland inside the first door. If your era's values escape past you and me, that nightmare could return. That is why I showed you the scene from your home era inside the second door. No matter how pure of heart you are, Tom, you are not going to change everyone's mind. Furthermore, everyone you saw there whose lifespan is beyond fifty more years is doomed to a miserable end in any case. It's a war against an evil from the past, Tom. Do you understand?"

"I think so," Tom said. "But if they're all going to die in a few more decades anyway, is it really necessary for us to kill anybody?"

"I hope not," Margarethe said. "But you must be prepared for that possibility if we are to close the door."

Tom gazed out into the bucolic scene he had once been paid to destroy. "Then why can't we just close the door already?"

"We don't know exactly how," Margarethe said. "That you have arrived is the first step, assuming that you are the good-hearted member of the last generation, and I believe you are." With a saucy grin she looked him up and down and added, "And more than ever, I hope you are!" 

Tom laughed, and longed for a kiss or more. But he knew it wasn't to be yet.

"The prophecy holds that the chosen one -- apparently you, Tom -- will create a drastic change of environment just on the other side of the door. That will further warp the fabric of time and force the gap to close, but not before you return to our time and to me." Margarethe smiled gently. "Now you see why you must draw upon all your inner strength, whether you are aware or not that it is there. I can see it, Tom. Can you?"

"A drastic change of environment," Tom repeated uncertainly. "What do I do, set the woods on fire?"

"If necessary," Margarethe said frankly.

"A forest fire? I could destroy acres of land! Homes! People could die!"

"That's all going to happen to them in a few more years no matter what you do," Margarethe reminded him. "And those beautiful woods of yours are going to end up at the bottom of the ocean. You and I cannot stop that from happening."

Tom sighed. "I am not a firebug, and I love those woods. There must be another way."

"If you can think of one, you are welcome to try it," Margarethe said. "But the longer you wait, the higher the risk that someone will escape to our time and reignite the longing for destructive creature comforts that nearly wiped out the human race in your time."

Tom felt compelled to turn away from the window. He stepped back out into the hallway, followed by Margarethe, who did not try to stop him. "Fine," he said flatly. "I guess I'll do what I need to do. Under one condition."

"You want to bring Jim back with you," Margarethe said.

Tom nodded. 

"Even after what you saw just now," she said incredulously.

"That's not the real Jim!" Tom snapped. "He was just putting on a show for his buddies, and trying to impress those women. The real Jim has a heart of gold and he'll respect the new ways. I know it! Besides that, he owes me. I kept a humiliating secret for him once."

"I feared this would be necessary," Margarethe said. "Come with me." She led him back up the hallway to another door. "You may spend all the time you need here, Tom, in order to see the truth. You can even open other doors within and wander around the memory all you want. But I implore you to be brutally honest with yourself." With that she flung open the door and stepped aside. 

Tom peered in and felt his heart leap into his throat. It was his room, back home. Late afternoon on a school day from the look of it, and he and Jim were sprawled on the floor playing cards. Probably about ninth grade, Tom guessed from the look of his younger self. 

He turned back to see Margarethe standing in the doorway. She held it open for him, but shook her head when he bade her follow. "Take all the time you need, Tom," she called, her voice coming across the threshold like an echo. "But this is a bridge you must cross alone."

Tom had to confess to himself that her refusal made sense. He turned and regarded his long-ago conversation with his dearest friend. 

"So you want to hang out at Corey's after school tomorrow?" he heard himself ask Jim, then known as Jimmy if they were as young as Tom thought. "They have pepperoni slices a buck each until four-thirty."

"Can't," Jim said. "I have basketball practice."

"What?!" Tom asked. "We talked about that, Jimmy. I was gonna try out but you said we weren't good enough!"

"I didn't say we weren't good enough," Jim shot back. "I said you weren't good enough." 

"What the fuck, guy?" Young Tom stood up and kicked at the discard pile in outrage.

"Kidding!" Jimmy said. "I tried out, I made second string, knowing that was good enough for me and I quit the team. Yeah, I'd love to go for pizza with you."

"But maybe I wanted to try out for basketball!" Tommy snapped. "I'd have been fine with second string, and you don't know I wouldn't have made the team!"

"Yeah I do," Jimmy replied with a grin. 

"Fuck off!"

"Kidding! Just messing with your mind, Tom. And if you ask me I did a pretty good job, too."

Adult Tom had seen enough. He remembered the conversation now, including how it had devolved into a fistfight soon afterward. He turned back to look at Margarethe, who pointed at his closet door across the room. Tom nearly tore the door off its hinges, so eager was he to get away. Stepping through the doorway, he found himself on a ratty-looking expanse of asphalt, just inside a chain link fence. The city pool, he realized, just down at the end of the cement path before him. Midday in the middle of summer, from the looks of it. In turn he recalled how the pool had always been closed for an hour at lunch while there was no lifeguard on duty. As usual, though, a glance down at the pool showed a few brave souls had snuck in one way or another. 

On the pavement, a dozen or so kids were milling around just outside the fence, but Tom didn't see himself anywhere. He did see Jimmy -- probably about twelve -- walk brazenly though the gate and down towards the pool.

"Hey kid!" called an older teen from outside the bathhouse, probably a lifeguard.

Jimmy turned around. "Yeah?" 

"The pool's closed."

"Well, my friend is already in there," Jimmy replied, and a memory arose for Tom.

"Go tell him to get out, then," the older boy told him.

"Okay." Jimmy set off again.

"Leave your towel up here." 

Jimmy did as he was told. Tom set off after him, invisible to one and all. Soon he saw Jimmy flagging down Tom's younger self as he swam. "Tommy! You have to get out of there! The pool's closed!"

"You're here too, jump in!" Tom called.

"Can't! They know I'm down here and they made me leave my towel there and come get you."

Young Tom reluctantly got out of the pool and toweled off. "You shouldn't have told them I was here," he grumbled. "Just 'cause you weren't able to sneak past them."

"I didn't!" Jimmy lied. "They saw you and told me to go tell you to get out!"

Tom had seen enough. He recalled the incident now, and he recalled that he had always believed Jim's silly story. But through his annoyance, Tom was soon able to rationalize it all. Jim was just a kid then, and kids always get jealous of anything their friends get that they don't. Tom looked around and saw a storage shed by the pool, and opened the door. 

He stepped out onto a different expanse of worn-down pavement. The elementary school playground, he realized after a moment's reflection. It was the end of recess, and the kids were lining up to return to class. Tom watched as his much younger self walked meekly up to boys' line outside the classroom door. Jimmy was just ahead of him, and turned around to see the boy he would one day call "bro" just behind him. 

"Back up," Jimmy said gruffly.

Tom -- Tommy in those days -- did as he was told.

"Another step."

Tommy complied.

"Keep going," Jimmy snarled.

"How far?" Tommy asked obediently.

"Like till you hit California." With a snotty giggle, he turned and went inside without another word. 

Well okay, Tom thought now, but all kids that age are nasty to each other sometimes, even with their friends. At that point he saw the door open, and out stepped Mrs. Perkins, their fourth grade teacher. Now Tom was further satisfied: the soccer field incident of fifth grade had not yet happened. Jim would never again mouth off at him like that after that day! Tom followed Mrs. Perkins and the kids through the door, undetected. 

Inside, he found himself in a school, but it wasn't his elementary school. Junior high, he soon recalled. Must be late in the school year, he further mused, as all the kids he saw were dressed in light clothes. Tom walked down the row of lockers, winking undetected at a few of his old crushes and wondering what life-altering occasion he was about to relive. 

Wait a minute, he realized with a start. Late in the year, eighth grade...it couldn't be the time he'd made such an ass of himself asking Polly Wilson to the dance and Ricky Mason, the smarmiest bully of all, had found out about it somehow?

To Tom's chagrin, it was. On the fourth or fifth row of lockers, he happened upon his angst-ridden fourteen year old self rifling angrily through his locker. Tom remembered it all too well -- any second now, Jimmy would show up...

And there he was "Hey Tom, I heard some people found out?"

Young Tom pulled his head out of his locker and glared at his friend. "Yeah, you told 'em!"

"What?! No way, man, I didn't tell anybody!"

"That's not what I heard!" Tom mouthed the words along with his younger self.

"Who told you I told them?" Jimmy looked just as righteously furious as Tom recalled. 

"Ricky!" Tom snapped. 

"I would never tell that creep! What are you talkin' about?"

"Ricky came up to me singsonging her name this morning, and said you told him! He said he bribed you for a dollar and you told him everything!"

"That liar!" Jimmy kicked a closed locker. "I wouldn't sell you out for anything, man, not after -- well, you know what! I know better than that!"

Adult Tom looked up the way to see the subject of their argument slithering up the hallway with his usual smirk. "Oh Tommy!" he teased, knowing Tom would be at his locker.

Jimmy barged out to meet their nemesis.

"Ah, Jimmy. Thanks for your help!" Ricky said. 

"I didn't tell you nothing, liar!" Jimmy snapped.

"No need to lie to him now," Ricky said, continuing on the way to his locker. "The word's out, after all."

Jimmy looked back at Tom. "Let's punch him out."

By now adult Tom knew his former self would be two or three steps behind Jimmy. But he remembered every moment of this particular incident to begin with. Jimmy marched up to Ricky's locker with Tom just behind him. Ricky, still with his smirk, looked up from his locker to see Jimmy glaring at him. "Having second thoughts about selling out your bed-buddy, are you?" he asked smarmily.

Jimmy kicked the locker door hard enough to hit Ricky in the head and also knock him into the doorjamb. Ricky managed to keep from crying until the two buddies sauntered off. 

The satisfaction of seeing that climax again was all that had kept Tom from turning tail and running for the nearest door as soon as he'd realized just which memory this was. He did not need a reminder of the humiliation of the days and weeks that followed as Polly and her friends stared at him in the hallway as if he were from the moon. No wonder he hadn't started dating until most of the way through high school. 

With the satisfaction of finally learning that Ricky did in fact cry a bit once the coast was clear, Tom was late for the door -- any door. Feeling a bit naughty now, he headed for the women faculty's restroom. He got there just in time to see Miss Plamier, his seventh grade math teacher, leaving the room. No surprise that she'd been in the bathroom, Tom recalled, as she used to guzzle diet cola all day long. Chuckling with self-deprecation that he should recall such a thing, Tom pushed in the swinging door. At least this stop had proven that Jim's good side was not all in his imagination. He had, on the other hand, never learned how word really had gotten out about Polly. 

Now it was a summer's day on the corner of Pearl and Larchmont, the block that separated Tom and Jim's childhood homes. The neighborhood looked ratty as ever and Tom found he hadn't missed it at all for those past seven months. He imagined it now as either a quaint village like modern Mascawad, or as unspoiled countryside, and he found he wished he could see it. For now, though, he was treated to a misty vision of the two of them on their bikes. No doubt we're on our way home from a wishful-thinking ride through a much nicer neighborhood, he thought as he watched the riders approach. 

"So did you catch hell last night from the flavor of the month?" Jim asked.

"Nah, Mom didn't bring him home until I was already in bed," Tom replied. "So I stayed out of his sight this time."

"This time." 

"Yeah," Tom said, and the implication remained unspoken.

"Is this the one who..."

"Yeah," Tom said. "Him. I'll probably just stay away until dark and climb in my room window. He can't catch me with his belt if he doesn't know I'm in the house." Adult Tom remembered all too well which of his mother's boyfriends that was, and why climbing through the window was worth all the trouble and then some.

"Aw, man, come over my place then," Jim said. "You can stay all night if you want."

"Won't your mother say no?"

"Not if she doesn't know," Jim reassured him. "Worse comes to worse, you sleep in the closet. She'll never know you're there!"

Tom remembered now: he had indeed spent the night in Jim's closet, and escaped that weekend with no bruises. And he hadn't even had to ask Jim for the favor. "All right, then, now I know," Tom said out loud. 

He headed for what had once been his front door, wondering if he could will himself back to Margarethe's house. After the briefest glimpse of the dilapidated couch in the living room on which he had lost his virginity at seventeen, Tom saw a bright light and found himself back with Margarethe in the hallway. "Now do you see?" she asked him. "Yes, Jim has been a good friend to you, but he can also be selfish and cruel. And you never did see any proof that he didn't tell the other boy about this Polly girl, did you?"

"Well...no, but I mean, she must have told all her friends that night on the phone anyway! I remember, there was just enough time for him to find out from any of them."

"Perhaps," said Margarethe. "Tom, I can see he was a very good friend to you. But what I have seen does not indicate that he is pure of heart like you are, and indeed there is strong evidence that he is quite far from it."

"You don't know him like I do," Tom insisted.

"And you don't know what became of your world like I do," Margarethe countered. "Because of people like Jim who didn't care!"

Tom could not deny that. "Fine. Maybe you're right, but there's one thing I can do that will settle it once and for all."

"You want to go back to 2012 and invite him to join you here," Margarethe said with a knowing nod.

"Why not?" Tom replied.

"Why not indeed," Margarethe agreed. "You do have to go back through the door at least once anyway. In any case it is not for me to decide what you shall do back in your own time. But I shall warn you, Tom, I believe you are inviting a broken heart."

"That's awfully easy to say when you're not losing your best friend!"

"My family lost their entire world!" Margarethe countered, beginning an angry walk back towards the foyer. "For generations we were isolated here in a desert hell created by your generation and its predecessors, and as a result my own fate has been to guard the door against intruders from your time lest they do it all again, and to have to kill them when all else fails! My darling, the prophecy may call for me to love you, but that does not mean you may take me for granted and deny my losses and sacrifices!"

Tom followed in silence, considering all that she said. As they retreated into the silence of the foyer, he knew what he had to say. "Margarethe, I'm sorry. You're right. About everything. But please try to understand I can't just give up on Jim. We have a bond."

Margarethe turned around and looked mollified. "I accept that, my dear. But please do understand that your chances of success are quite small."

"If you say so," Tom admitted.

"I do. And as for your bond, Tom --"

"I can tell you about that if you want," Tom said.

"I know about it," Margarethe interrupted. "Fifth grade, on the soccer field." She gave him a knowing nod.

"Good heavens, how did you know that?!"

"The same way I know all I know about you, Tom, and that does not matter. What does matter is the nature of that bond. Think about it, my friend: who benefitted from that incident, and which of you suffered in the end?"

"Yeah," Tom admitted, "But from then on he was always there for me!"

"Always? What about the basketball team?"

Tom sat at the table in the center of the room and buried his face in his arms. He could feel his resolve weakening, but he couldn't give up on Jim. Not after all these years.

"Tom," Margarethe said evenly, still not touching him per the plan. "If you wish to see Jim one last time, I recommend you go through the door in the morning. It will take you some time to make your way back to Mascawad. Please get some sleep, and think about the repercussions of what you wish to do. I shall now be off to my own bed, which shall be our bed once this is all behind us. I wish you a very good night, my darling."

Tom raised his head to watch as she floated across to her bedchamber door and vanished inside. There was nothing to be done now but follow her advice, so he stood up and let himself into his bedchamber. An oil lamp on the bedside table illuminated the whole room, and a stack of logs awaited him in the fireplace. He struck a match and had the fire lit shortly, and slowly peeled off his clothes as the room warmed up. The bed looked inviting after the long swim, but his mind was racing and conflicted and he foresaw little chance of falling asleep anytime soon. 




The Relapse Door



Tom spent the next several minutes pacing the floor and thinking. As the fire warmed the room, he undressed slowly, a bit at a time. He was naked and warm, but still not relaxed enough to try sleeping, when the knock came at his door. "Tom? Are you yet awake?" 

"Yes," He admitted. "You couldn't sleep either?"

Margarethe opened the door. She was also nude, and they shared a laugh at the mutually pleasant sight. "I got as far as undressing, but never got into bed," she said.

"Same here, as you can see."

She stepped up to Tom, stopping just short of touching him. "I came in to say I am sorry for how distant I have been this evening," she said.

"If those are the rules, I understand," Tom said.

"Well, I don't know for sure that they are," Margarethe said. "That is but one interpretation, and not the interpretation of anyone who has had to live with my burden or with my heart. Tom, my attitude tonight was, in part, because the risk you want to take for Jim frightens me. When I first became aware of you -- and that is longer ago than you think -- I appreciated you because of your good intentions and sense of integrity. When I first saw you on the beach..." She looked down at his bare body now and grinned. "Well, I liked what I saw." 

They shared a nervous laugh. 

"But I had no way of being sure I could love you up to that point," she continued. "This evening, though, while you were visiting your past and talking to me about Jim, when I saw how deeply committed you were to your friend in spite of everything, my darling, that was not a matter of appreciation or attraction, but the truest of love. I have known all my life that the prophecy called for me to be on my own until the savior arrived, and I have been quite ambivalent about what all that means. It felt like I had no choice in the matter, and that did not sit well with me. But to be loved like you love Jim...Forgive me, Tom, but do you believe you could ever love me like that?"

Seeing that her green eyes were glistening with tears, Tom gave her a brave smile. "Knowing everything I've learned about this era and all that came before, and what you have done to preserve it all? Margarethe, I'm pretty sure I already do love you that much. It's just that I've known Jim all my life."

"Oh, leave it to you to give the perfect answer when I have vowed not to touch you," Margarethe said with a wry grin. 

"But you said you weren't sure that was the rule?" Tom was hopeful, for now he was aching to take her in his arms more than ever.

"Not only that," Margarethe answered with a sultry grin. "I believe part of true wisdom is knowing when it is time to ignore the rules." With that she took Tom's stiff cock in both her hands and caressed it gently. 

"Ohhhhh boy!" Tom struggled to keep his balance as her welcome touch radiated throughout his body. "Yeah, let's break the rules all right!"

Free at last to do as she pleased, Margarethe took Tom in her arms and began kissing him passionately. Tom rubbed her back and ran his fingers gently through her long hair, and all his lingering regrets of back home receded even further with each caress. Margarethe gave every indication of appreciating his gentle touch, but she was not to be denied her greater pleasure for long. He soon found her rubbing him expertly down below again, and he exhaled a hum of delight. 

"Are you ready for your new life?"

Tom answered not with words, but with one arm around her back and the other hand slipping gently into her vagina. He felt her juices flooding around his two fingers as she threw her head back and gasped in pleasure. "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod...Tom..." She gripped him harder down below and he enjoyed the sensation, but he was focused on her pleasure and he saw to it that she got it. Just as he had done with Sarah, Tom rubbed gently against her inner flesh. If there was one thing even the sadsack back in his own time had known how to do right...

Don't think like that. With any luck it would be the last time he would have to tell himself that. Margarethe certainly didn't have to tell him at that moment, for already she was lost in the throes of her first orgasm at his hands. She grabbed onto his arm to balance herself as the waves washed throughout her body. When the sensation had passed, she pushed him back gently onto the soft bed, and Tom found himself pinned wonderfully beneath her with her thighs clamping tightly around him. 

Tom leaned up to meet her lips, and she was soon prone on him while he caressed the sides of her breasts while enjoying the sensation of her hard nipples pressed against his body. She had worked him inside her before he even knew it, and with that she sat up and rocked hard back and forth. 

"Oh, Tom...Tom!"

There were none of the first-time jitters with which Tom was so familiar. Margarethe's uninhibited caresses and responsiveness put him at ease, and any uncertainties he had about making love to such a beautiful woman had been put to rest by the vulnerability she had just shown him. The fire crackled intensely behind her, and her fiery hair seemed alive with the passion as she ground again and again into him. "Ohhhhhh..." Her groans were more refined than Sarah's, perhaps, but no less intense. 

Nor her feminine muscles any less strong as she squeezed him delightfully within. "Ohhhh!" Tom bent upward again and again with each of her squeezes, and flopped back to the mattress each time with a wave of joy. All his worldly cares past and present were blissfully forgotten in that moment, and nothing mattered but the kindness of Margarethe's body enveloping him and spreading sensation everywhere.

With every breath Margarethe seemed to be drawing closer to an intense orgasm, and she was bound and determined to bring her true love along with her. The horrors of yesterday all vanished from his mind as Tom drank in the sights, sounds and pure sensation of beautiful Margarethe above him, around him, on him. He found himself grunting like he had never grunted before. "Oh my...oh my...ungh!"

"Going to come with me?" Margarethe teased breathlessly.

"Hope so!" Tom replied. "Can't believe how strong it is!"

"How strong?"

"Yeah!" It was all he could say in the heat of the moment. From his very first time on the couch back home, Tom had been jealous of the intensely joyous noises women always seemed to make during sex...why couldn't he feel so wrapped up in it all too?! But here and now, he did. Tom was now lost in the throes of the most intense joy of his life, and he gave in completely to his primal urges in a way no other woman -- not even Sarah -- had enabled him to do. 

The sensation down below becoming overwhelming as Margarethe rocked her way to orgasm above him, Tom held his breath and exhaled slowly and propped himself up on his elbows. "AHHHHHHHHHHHH...." But he wasn't quite there yet. Margarethe's moans having given way to outright screaming as she rocked up and down his body, Tom grabbed at her sides and arched his back as he felt the explosion coming at last. He opened his eyes and looked deep into hers, and allowed a roar from deep within as he felt his seed spurt into Margarethe. 

In the heat of the moment it did not occur to him, but later during the endless playful afterglow under the covers, it did: "Oh no, Margarethe. I still don't have any sperm pills."

"My darling, if I had wanted you to have those, I'd have seen to it that you did."

"You mean you want a baby?"

"Someday, certainly," she said. "It is unlikely to happen tonight, I assure you. You see..."

"I know," Tom said, recalling what Sarah had said. "Cycles of the moon and all that. You women certainly put a lot of faith in that in your time."

"Well, no, Tom, we don't," Margarethe corrected him. "But it is hardly a worthless guide either. In any event, now that we have found one another across the centuries, I think it only right that we begin a family, don't you?"

Tom lay back on his pillow and took in the enormity of the change that had come to his life out of nowhere. "Yes," he said after a moment's reflection. "Definitely. And if we have a son --"

"Yes," Margarethe interrupted, snuggling up close to him.

"Yes what?" Tom asked. "You don't know what I was going to say."

"Of course I do," Margarethe countered. "You were going to say we should name our son Jim."

Tom sighed. "I love you, Margarethe, but whatever your gifts, I would appreciate it if you wouldn't read my mind."

"I didn't read your mind," Margarethe said, kissing his cheek.

In the morning Tom woke up and, despite the relaxed attitude toward nudity that was already becoming second nature, he pulled on a dressing gown he found on a chair near the bed. Opening the door, he found Margarethe looking radiant before him in a full skirt and brightly colored knit sweater, carrying a basket of bread and fruit. "A nice healthy breakfast is essential before a trip through the door," she told him. 

Breakfast was quiet but agreeable. Margarethe neither questioned him about Jim nor tried to dissuade him any more than she already had. "I shan't question your judgment from this point on," she reassured him. "Your job is to create a climactic change at the door, and you can do that in any way you see fit. Just do be careful, Tom, for the prophecy calls for you to return through the door before it closes. And besides..."

"Besides what?" Tom asked.

"Besides, if you complete your mission, the door shall close forever. And I want you here with me." She sniffled and had to pick up a napkin to cover her face.

"Oh, Margarethe, that's sweet," Tom said. "I have to admit I was wondering, last night..."

"After we made love you were wondering?!"

"No, before. But now that I know just what I'll be losing if I don't come back..."

"What we will be losing, Tom."

"That's right, we. I won't allow that to happen. But I do need to bring Jim back here."

After that tender moment, it was all business on the walk to the door to the past. "How do I go through the way you did?" he asked.

"I think you may be able to do it just as I did," Margarethe answered. "But to ensure your safety, I shall join you. Just hold my hand. Even though it violates the vow," she added with a wicked grin.

"As you order," Tom grinned, and he climbed up the ladder after her. Atop the ledge, she held out her hand and he took it. On her count of three, they leapt. 

Tom had thoughtfully worn the warmest clothes he could find in his new wardrobe -- a woolen sweater and jeans -- and Margarethe had somehow retrieved his boots, now dry. So when he landed back in his own time, a quick roll in the snow before he regained his balance left him none the chillier. A bright morning sun trickled down through the pines, and Tom estimated that it was probably about the same time of day as it had been at his disappearance. 

Margarethe stood on the edge of the hill where he had fallen. "It's been reported you were in the hospital," she told him. "I suppose your boss did not want to scare anyone -- except of course for you."

"Oh good," Tom said. No need to create a crazy story, then. 

"I shall watch for you by the other side of the door," she told him. "If you should have difficulty finding the door," she added, untying a ribbon from her hair, "Look for this." She tied it to the nearest tree branch. 

Tom nodded, and turned back toward the logging camp. "I love you, Margarethe."

"I love you too, Tom. Do what you feel you must do, but come back safe and sound. That is an order!"

"Yes ma'am!" And Tom turned to go before cowardice could get the best of him. Don't even start down that road, he told himself as he backtracked his journey through the trees. If there was one common thread in all those memories of Jim, it was how often he'd gone along two steps behind Jim. She had been right about that, painful as it was to admit. The time for that was over, no matter what horrible thing he might have to do to save the world from its former self. Or to save Jim. 

Tom did his best to enjoy the view of the lovely woods he had so enjoyed two days before. But he had little success in doing so, knowing all the while that they would disappear within living memory of his generation. Knowing what he might well have to do to the forest in order to close the door, Tom found it was just as well to keep that in mind!

His pace was brisk, and he happened upon the clearing before very long. From here he had a clear view of the sun, and estimated it was late afternoon here despite being morning in the future. The foreman's truck was parked just where he recalled it, and it had now been joined by a backhoe and a few other pieces of heavy equipment alongside the trailer. But there were no other cars in the clearing. It would be an awfully long walk back to Mascawad, but he could hardly ask the foreman for a ride home when the foreman probably thought he was dead. There must be another option, but Tom did not see it. 

He cased the trailer around the edge of the clearing, trying to at least see if the foreman was inside. If for some reason he'd stepped out, perhaps Tom could borrow his truck keys. No such luck, as a glance at the right time revealed his adversary relaxing at his desk, reading a magazine from the looks of it. But then Tom happened to look down. There, parked below the window, was the answer to Tom's prayers: a snowmobile. 

Tom crept up under the window and assessed the machine. It looked like it was probably in fine condition, but the keys were no doubt inside. This posed only a minor setback for a kid from Tom's side of the tracks. Gingerly he squeezed his way between the side of the trailer and the snowmobile, and reached down to pick up a rock. One whack cracked the steering column open, and Tom was able to strip the wires and touch them together in a matter of seconds. By the time the noise had alerted the foreman, he had time only to see the snowmobile disappearing down the logger trail with Tom safely facing away from him and wearing a sweater he had never seen. 

The foreman would no doubt have called the cops by the time Tom reached Route 103, he knew, and the snowmobile wouldn't run on pavement anyway. So he turned off into the sparser woods a few hundred feet before the highway. Gunning the snowmobile as fast as he safely could, Tom weaved his way between the trees and managed to stay out of sight all the way back to the edge of Mascawad. He heard the sirens he knew were meant for him, but the police never saw him. With the first houses within sight, Tom steered behind the fattest tree trunk he could find and killed the engine. As the drive through the woods had been slow going, the sun was nearly down and he had little trouble staying out of sight as he made his way through the doomed town. 

At first Tom felt compelled to stay out of sight. But as he made his way through the darkened streets, first one and then two and then several other people crossed his path without remarking on his resemblance to the guy who was rumored to have disappeared. Did anybody except Jim even suspect he was missing? Tom didn't know, but he supposed it was just as well that he was so unremarkable to the townspeople given what he would have to do later on, back in the woods. 

Jim would no doubt be going to the bar that night. It was but a matter of waiting for him. As the evening was early yet, Tom went to his favorite diner after finding, to his relief, that Margarethe had also somehow procured his wallet. He had enough cash for a hearty dinner of pork chops and a baked potato, along with a Coke -- something that would probably not be available in the future, he now realized. 

As Tom sat inconspicuously in his booth and sipped on his last soda, it dawned on him that there would be many, many things he would never again have in the future. He didn't dare start listing them; it would only depress and discourage him. Again and again he reminded himself that the apocalypse was not far off and there was nothing he could do to avert it; and that he would be a hero in the future, not to mention married to beautiful Margarethe. If the future was primitive, it had all that and the orgies on the beach that he had seen and participated in only hours before. 

That happy thought had Tom feeling encouraged when at long last the time arrived for him to saunter over to the bar. The jukebox was playing loud and tinny as usual when Tom opened the door and sauntered in. Jim didn't see him at first, but he was there, surrounded by his gaggle of guys and gals just as Tom had seen him incognito the night before. 

Without a word, Tom walked up alongside him at the bar. He waved at the barmaid for a beer and turned to grin at Jim.

"Tom!" Jim slammed down his bottle and jumped up. "Holy shit, man, when'd you get out of the hospital?"

"Couple hours ago," Tom said. 

"How're you feeling?!" Before Tom could answer, Jim told his friends, "My buddy here, my roommate too, he got hit by a branch or something out in the forest yesterday morning and he was missing all night. I can't believe they let you out already!"

"I knew what I was doing," Tom said, feeling he sounded more like Jim than himself with all that puffery.

"Congratulations!" called out the woman beside Jim. She was dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans, looking as much like one of the guys as any of the guys but for her long dark hair. Tom immediately found himself thinking she would fit in well in the future too.

"A round for Tom!" Jim called out. All his friends took turns clinking glasses with Tom, who sat admiring his oldest friend with a lump in his throat. Getting a word alone with him would take some doing -- and that would be the easiest part. With all that beer, Tom reasoned he'd have to take a leak sooner or later. That settled, Tom relaxed and willingly joined in the evening's festivities. Could be my bachelor party, he thought with pleasant reflection. 

The evening wore on, and Tom realized somewhere along the line that the woman by Jim's side had spent last night with him, maybe even not for the first time. Comments like "You should hear the way he snores!" came up again and again, giving all away. Tom had to admit Jim did not always tell him everything. She seemed like a nice gal, in any case; at least Tom would be leaving his friend in good hands if he couldn't talk any sense into him. But Tom was still not willing to dwell on that as a real possibility.

After a short while that seemed like a long while, Jim stood up and made an announcement. "I gotta go water the tires," he said.

"Geez, Jim," the woman beside him said, "Why can't you just use the goddam bathroom?"

"'Cause it's disgusting, that's why," Jim said. 

Tom stood up too. "A word while you're pissing, Jim?"

"Hey, only the ladies pee in pairs!" called out one of the other guys. Tom laughed him off, Jim ignored him. 

"Yeah, whatever," Jim beckoned Tom out the front door with him and they walked around the side, Jim undoing his belt buckle. 

Now or never. "Jim. Listen. Last night, I wasn't in the woods. Or the hospital."

"You were with a girl? Fine, man, I ain't your dad. You don't need to tell me."

"Well, I was with a woman all right," Tom said. "Not just any woman either, but that's beside the point. Jim, okay, I know you're gonna think I'm crazy, but remember it's me, Tom, since the second grade. There's..." He hesitated as he watched Jim enjoying his release against the side of the building. "I fell through a hole in time, Jim. I've been to the future. And it's heavenly. It's like a beautiful dream. I'm going back tomorrow and you should join me. I just came back to get you. Because our world is going to end, man, probably before we're gone."

Jim stared at the wall for a moment as he finished relieving himself, then dissolved into quiet laughter that grew quickly into loud laughter. "Brilliant, Tom," he said. "I don't care who you were with last night, but don't expect me to fall for that garbage, man."